Comment

A visitor from a foreign land might ask why we continue to torture ourselves by listening to and thinking about Richard Nixon, a man whose wrongdoing and lack of moral stature have been so thoroughly exposed One reason is that we have never been able to answer the question of the extent to which Nixon, elected by us, is made in our image. He reflects something about codes of behavior in our times, but it is unclear whether or not alternatives to his code exist which could be called alive & healthy. In the first of the Frost interviews we were confronted with the bare bones of the Nixonian code. Nixon excuses himself on the ground that he did nothing "technically" wrong. The word as he uses it refers to the rules for lawyers in counselling defendants. Writer points out the difference between the world of law and the real world. There is a moral vacuum behind Nixon's instincts, reasoning, and behavior. The legal system cannot be used as our principal code of morality. What is called for is principles that can be pointed to as the mainstays of the culture, principles of which not disparate individuals but the society is the custodian. What is needed is something that could be called a tradition.